With a win over Nebraska on December 1st, they would have stumbled their way to the Big-10 title and could, at last, secure the rights to the title "worst team ever to play in a Rose Bowl."

In any event, the Badgers would secure the distinction of having the worst ever conference record of any Big-10 Rose Bowl representative -- nudging out a 1950 Michigan team who went with a 5-3-1 record (and still managed to bring home the Rose Bowl honors to the Big-10 by beating California.)

How did this happen?

How could mediocre poseurs like the Wisconsin Badgers end up representing the Big-10 in Pasadena on New Years' day?

Hey, we'll take it any way we can get it!

Well, two years ago, when the Big-10 reconfigured itself into 2 divisions, by sheer dumb luck, Wisconsin ended up in the same "Leaders" division with Ohio State and Penn State (along with perennial pansies, Illinois, Indiana and Purdue.)

Ohio State, despite a flawless 8-0 conference record and overall 12 game winning streak has been banned from post-season play for Florida State-styled recruiting and payola shenanigans.

And Penn State, despite a respectably formidable 6-2 conference tally, as we all know, has been banned from post season play as punishment for condoning the buggery of young boys in its shower rooms.

So that leaves Brett Bielema's 3rd place, mediocre poseurs from Dairyland, alone eligible to represent the division in the Big-10 championship game against Nebraska.

The winner of that one will go to the Rose Bowl and with Nebraska having only eked out a 3 point win over the Badgers on September 29th, really anything can happen there.

Including a Wisconsin win.

But why not?

If a mediocre poseur like Barack Hussein Obama can be re-elected despite the worst economy in generations, why can't mediocre poseurs like the Wisconsin Badgers end up in the Rose Bowl with a 4-4 regular season conference record?

A Word From The Publisher:

About The Chicago Lampoon

Chicago is a very funny city.

In fact, it is a windswept glacial burg that is the source of a never-ending supply of knee-slappers and outright horselaughs.

From the neophyte community organizer that it foisted on an unsuspecting American electorate to the mop-topped sociopathic boy-Governor that it sent to the Letterman show, to its storied depression era, tommy-gun toting philanthropists, it has produced some truly amusing and amazing characters.

It has a Mayor who is a former ballet dancer, who served in a foreign army and who threatens political enemies by sending them dead fish in the mail. It has 50 sleepy Alderman and 5, usually somnolent professional sports franchises

It has two Jesse Jacksons!

It has more potholes per capita than Nairobi, a creaky 1940s-era elevated train system and cops who get caught on videotape punching out bar maids and businessmen.

As we have since 2009, we are only going to report and comment on what actually happens in Chicago. To make up stuff this weird would tax our inventive capabilities to the limit (or at least as high as the, highest-in-the-nation, Cook County sales taxes.)

Meet The Editors

We're somewhere between Burkean conservatives and bomb throwing anarchists depending on the mood of the moment and the amount of restorative libation we have recently consumed.
But we're usually able to couch our maunderings in some pretty good journalistic prose.